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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25095976">007 Meet 007</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted'>sunaddicted</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>007 Games Fics 2k20 [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>James Bond (Craig movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Open to Interpretation, Possibly Unrequited Love, Tension, Unresolved Emotional Tension</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:47:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,196</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25095976</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Not even M was as safe as he was from the wrath of a Double-Oh.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James Bond/Q</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>007 Games Fics 2k20 [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794529</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>007 Fest Fancreations</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>007 Meet 007</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Item #11 of the Scavenger Hunt 2020: Write a scene from the new movie. What was seen in the trailers and previews may be used as inspiration or a jumping off point, but your scene must show original content. Tag your spoilers.</p><p>I didn't take inspiration even from the trailers so, you should be safe from any and all spoilers but, just in case, this is a Bond 25 fanfiction and while I'm 99.9% sure this scene will never happen, you have been warned lol</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>007 Meet 007</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The ability to work well under pressure had been one of the requirements for the job; Q hadn’t thought much of it at the beginning: hacking generally was the kind of activity that put one under the kind of pressure that felt like a sword being dangled above one’s head, waiting to fall as one battled to get in and out of someone’s precious system and data as soon as humanly possible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He obviously hadn’t been very familiar with the pressure of watching an agent court death, anxiety squeezing his heart at every shot that rang too loud in his headset and at any splotch of blood that widened far too quickly on a tailored shirt; he couldn’t have prepared for it in any way if not on the job, building resistance to the sight of his agents crippled by enemy fire or their own stupidity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Q had nerves of steel and while he did feel for the men and women out there, risking their lives for civilians who didn’t even know the kind of horrors they were being sheltered and protected from, he had quickly adapted to shutting his emotions out while the headset was on: the calmer he managed to stay, the higher the probabilities he could actually help the agents to get out of the field alive - even if a bit banged up or in need of serious medical attention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>However, he hadn’t been prepared to deal with the kind of tension that sprouted from excessive posturing between two titans. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course, he had been warned that Bond and the new 007 hadn’t exactly clicked it off and Q had to wonder how anyone had expected them to when James had refused for so long to even entertain retirement, clearly extremely attached to his title and his career - he obviously wouldn’t take it well to being confronted by someone wearing what had been his codename and his identity for literal decades: he was only human, afterall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, Q definitely had underestimated the pressure that would end bottled up in his office, seemingly permeating every single atom of air in a way that felt rather suffocating - the only thing missing was sparks of energy crackling along their skin, set off by a catty remark or by the arch of an eyebrow; they were strung tight, ready to snap as the moved around in cautious steps that made Q feel like he was being circled by a pair of lions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was rather uncomfortable - especially for someone as aware as he was of what James and Nomi were capable of, healthily scared enough that he wouldn’t want to be caught in a battle of wills and limbs between the two of them. Q kept calm, however: they were in the depths of MI6 and he was their Quartermaster - no matter how thirsty they were to taste one another’s sweat and blood, they would listen to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were trained to associate his voice with reason; with safety; with light.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not even M was as safe as he was from the wrath of a Double-Oh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“007 meet 007”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ve already had the pleasure”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Questionable pleasure</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Q arched an eyebrow at the heat in Nomi’s voice; he was used to her smarmy attitude and words permeated with sarcasm, not with anger - though, he supposed that if anyone would ever be able to get on her nerves, that was James fucking Bond: they were too similar for either of them to see anything else but their own flaws in each other, rubbing them in all the wrong ways “Maybe I just wanted to say that out loud, it’s not the kind of thing I predict will happen again in my career”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s not even 007 anymore”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>am </span>
  </em>
  <span>007 - I made those numbers mine, I shaped them into my legacy you are resting on”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, there it was one of the point of contention “Stop baring your teeth, please. I know you both have been trained to be politer and more charming than that” he might not have been particularly weak when it came to Nomi’s charms because of the mere fact that the seduction of a woman was bound to be wasted on a gay man, but he had guided her out in the field and he knew her smiles could be as lethal as Bond’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Q wasn’t going to think about that now, though: he couldn’t afford being distracted by the memory of how a pair of crystal blue irises had made him feel, their cold stare a knife that had been repeatedly twisted into his heart until just the whisper of the man’s name was enough to make him bleed. He loved and he hated the man for it even if he knew that, in the end, it all was his own fault: Q had been the one to fall for empty flirting and charming smiles that rarely reach the eyes and now he was paying the price for it, nursing a broken heart that refused to heal as long as the man insisted on walking back into his life - arrogant and sassy and beautiful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can handle this mission alone”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He forced himself to focus back on the conversation, skilfully ignoring the telling way the older man looked at him - whether Q liked it or not, and he really didn’t, James Bond could read him like the well-worn pages of a beloved book, spine cracked by years of devoted readership “I know you can but time is of essence and he knows what we are up against better than either of us” he reasoned, not even attempting to be persuasive - that wasn’t the ace up his sleeve. Forcing them to use their brains and follow his reasoning until they got to the same, most likely and satisfying conclusion? </span>
  <em>
    <span>That </span>
  </em>
  <span>was his talent and one of the few reasons why he still managed to have a decently sized budget despite the fact that his department arguably was the worst one when it came to the handling of finances - but one couldn’t exactly lesinate on equipment, right? The life of the agents and of those they were sacrificed to protect depended on its quality - the functionaries at Finance just needed to be lead to that conclusion by the hand sometimes and Q had become rather expert at that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“-No, you can’t” Q raised a finger towards Bond, silencing him before he could claim his ability to handle the mission on his own; again, there was no doubt about that but it was true that, legally and officially speaking, the man wasn’t 007 anymore and therefore didn’t exactly have a licence to kill - M was working to restore it temporarily to avoid sending Bond out with such a handicap but Q didn’t know how far the negotiations had already been taken or if they were stagnating “What the both of you can do is to be professional and make my life easier - understood?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, Q”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course, my dear Quartermaster”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The pressure loosened its hold a little, the air actually felt breathable now “Perfect. Let’s go over these mission specs then”  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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